Dear Friends and Colleagues,
National Biomechanics Day has had great success the past four years with few adverse outcomes. Today however, we face as all others do, the pandemic of the COVID-19 virus. A number of labs and organizations which had registered for NBD 2020 have cancelled their events for the health and safety of their participants. We can only agree with them and we emphatically state that these issues are our primary concern too.
While NBD is a worldwide event, it is uniquely also many individual events of small and large groups. We now ask each site to consider the health and safety of your participants and to consider one of several paths.
We advise all registered NBD groups to cancel your current events and if possible, postpone your event and we strongly ask you to follow this policy if your local and broad governing agencies deem NBD-like events are unsafe. We are now developing an October event that will enable us to safely celebrate and enjoy Biomechanics with young people. We will announce a new October date after receiving feedback from our constituencies.
Several people have suggested holding virtual NBD events this April if the governing agencies deem a virtual meeting safe and appropriate and if one has the capacity to conduct such an event. However, even virtual events require cooperation from multiple people and we therefore are not promoting this strategy at this time.
The Biomechanics Initiative, Inc, the parent organization of NBD is fully prepared to support and assist you if you hold an alternative event later this year when and if the COVID-19 threat subsides, in October as part of our revised 2020 plan, or even later this year. We fully plan to celebrate Biomechanics with an April 2021 NBD but today we prioritize everyone’s health. We promote the idea, Biomechanics Helps People, and we now help you by promoting Social Distancing.
We thank everyone for your great support and enthusiasm and we remain confident that through all our efforts we will increase the impact of Biomechanics on people’s lives and so bring a few more smiles to everyone. For today, we promote health and safety of everyone by canceling or postponing your April NBDs.
With great regard, your friend,
Paul
Paul DeVita, Ph.D.
Founder and Director, National Biomechanics Day